FIRE MAN

By Mark Herringshaw

Your first glance glanced through His flame

Recalling when fire had no name

Before hearth stones, or steel and flint

Or molten forges that hands of iron bent

Before gents tamed the dragon face of heat

Or walked with embers under booted feet

You too set your face with an open hand

Daring to snatch the flickering brand

And wield it in your grip as white light

And heat, and a way to fight.

You made fire your trustable friend

A fierce desire, a redemptive end,

A way to pierce the cavern shaft

And descend to where dark voices waft

To rid your own hollow of serpent smoke

With His holy fire and your deadly stroke.



Your pace launched crisply, torch held high

Ambition charging in a riveting eye.

You tread the path no other soul could cut

Down to the hall where your door held shut.

His fire shadow danced the hall.

Your breathing echoed some distant wall

Then hiss...

You flinched and thrust your brand amiss

Against that scaled monster's head

Baring a tongue that struck then fled.

In spite, the beast belched a lightless brand

That scorched the torch and burnt your hand.

Lad, you dropped your solitary flame.

Out. Darkness came.

'Midst bellows of scorn, wimps of despair

My boy you crawled back to open air

And yearly now succumb to a tamed desire

Resolved to never, never play with fire.



Until. Until. Until anon one day

A lady love and loved came then fell away

Into your very shaft of grimmest blight

And pled aloud for some saving light.

"Where?" you cried, but dared not descend

To what you knew must be your bitter end.

Weighted terror caused your heart to sink

You dared not pause in your stride to think.

But in one blind rush you snatched a stick

And sparked it as a faint and wavering wick

As a valor tool to raid your dragon's lair

And snatch your lady from the vile snare

Of empty promises and binding rage

From foul inducements in this blinding age.

You stormed into the heart of certain death

Again to face the dragon's blackest breath

Abandoned to your fate

Careless of your doomed and pitted state

You roared and charged and struck, but fell

Against the vehement, lightless spell

Shadows reared to aim one crushing blow

Again a man you stood like a speck below

Then thrust up the single simple light

And flung it past the teeth of night

Where down it fell to brightless fires

In the belly of the beast where light expires

You, you collapsed, your arrows spent

"I am finished, Lady, broken, bent"

But then the beast winced, staggered, fumed

Bellowed and burst consumed

By a fire of some purging holy glare

That liberated two as a sacred pair

And melted down your door of stone

That led you past to stand as two alone

And find your path above the fray

To live, to love in one more day.

Yes, you dared to captain fire's fame

To tame the violent heated name

And so confirmed inferno's rightful place

Won by Him who exposed Shadow's face

For buried in every man's own story

Lies this valiant ancient backward glory

Of a boy who loved to fuel the blaze

Who in dying stokes a man in latter days

Christmas 2002><